


♨ L◭ℳℳ◬Ꮥ ♨ (LAMMAS)

by lucius_complex



Series: ♨ Ꮥ◭ℳℌ◬ᏐᏁ ♨ (SAMHAIN) [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, High levels of non-con, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, More Hurt Than Comfort, Psychological Horror, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Romance if you squint, Stockholm Syndrome, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:39:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.”<br/>― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman</p><p> <br/>Tony has always known he could hold the world in the palm of his hands, but Loki is both vessel and clay; his greatest triumph and most spectacular failure. Sequel to 'Samhain'. Explicit. Dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

  
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******LA **ℳ ** ** **ℳAS****** ** ** ** ** ** **  
****************** **

1

Tony is angry, the day he comes back to his toxic woodland creature and finds him half suffocated on his own red robes; slender throat bruised and swollen, twisted into the coils of a makeshift red rope.

‘If you find me so defiling, so be it,’ he annouces, angered that the god would rather self-destruct than submit to Tony’s touch.

At this announcement Loki’s red hot anger turns abruptly to desperation, to a fear so naked and intense that even Tony is nonplussed, until he realises what it means, and then his greed increases a thousand fold.

‘You’ve never been taken before,’ he murmurs. ‘Oh, Loki, Loki how I shall feast on you.’

‘Don’t you _dare_ \- you filthy, stupid mortal, you are dust beneath my feet; _no one like you shall touch a god,  no, noooo NO-‘_ and Loki is screaming, fighting and struggling with a vigor he hadn’t showed in weeks. He scratches his fingernails into Tony’s face, attempts to gouge his eyes but Tony is somehow stronger, more confident. He grapples almost triumphantly with the god, who seems to weaken visibly in the face of Tony’s cold competence.

Loki struggles with him, almost for hours, even onto the ripping of clothing and up to Tony shoving him face against glass, pinning his arms above them though brutal strength alone, and laughing as he avoided the god’s attempts to strike him with his head.

Again and again, Loki attempts to raise the shield of his cracked pride, and again and again Tony brings them crashing down.

Finally the god bellows; ‘ _Why_ are you doing this? Will _nothing_ stay your hand?’

The human considers him. ‘Beg me.’

Loki’s features took on a blank and vacant look, before suddenly raising his head to spit in the mortal's face. Tony wipes it off with painstaking slowness, then punches him once, brutally on the mouth.

‘Loki, Loki, Loki,’ he admonishes as the copy of the god of mischief wheezes and gasps, choking on a bloodied mouth. ‘I will take you in pain or in pleasure. Pleasure’s always better.’

The god laughs as he dribbles blood and spit through his lips, hateful and derisive. He has not spoken in days; but now he babbles as Tony removes the torn remnants of his garbs. His descriptions of what he will do to are filthy and cruel, visions of torture and eternal pain; worse than any Tony has ever endured –

Then just as abruptly both speech and fight goes out of Loki, as soon as Tony lubricates a his cock on blood and breaches the tightly puckered ring of muscles with his fingers.

‘There. That’s it. That’s what you’re giving me.’

There is a cresting point he can feel in the musculature of the god’s body that finally go slack beneath him, a tipping point for Loki once his body has been breached that relinquishes Loki's power and strength. _Defeat_ , and the soundless surrender of it is sweeter than anything Tony has ever experienced.

He becomes almost pliant as Tony rolls him over and thrusts his hips between the god’s longer legs. Tony aligned their bodies together, the better to see every expression that crosses the god’s face.

Loki gasps at the first breach of Tony’s leaking cock, but bites his own wrist rather than cry out.

‘You are magnificent in my dreams,’ Tony pants, driving himself into the god, taking it all. And it feels so good, it feels perfect, even Loki’s unwillingness was perfect, a counterpoint to the yielding, supple flesh of the god in his dreams.

‘I will kill you,’ Loki promises though clenched teeth, ‘I am but one copy, and there will be many.’

‘It’s a small price to pay compared to how good you feel.’

‘Death is too good for you.'

‘You won’t die from this either,’ Tony callojes, and twists his hips against a particularly brutal thrust that almost lifts Loki off the floor with a scream. He exults in Loki’s subsequent silence and submissiveness. The god’s viciousness are like that of an angry snake; easy to contain, once you figured how snakes had to be caught. How they were to be tamed.  

‘Yes, take it all back to your master,’ he croons, riding each thrust through its crest before plunging in anew. ‘Feel everything, yes. Feel me. Tony Stark, filthy mortal going deep inside you. Touching you in places nobody else has ever touched, and you can feel it all from there, can’t you? Shhhhhh, you can look away but you feel _everything_  I'm doing to you. You can’t escape me.’ 

‘Yes. Yes. You’re perfect like this, perfect to me,’ He hisses with satisfaction when Loki’s mouth forms an exquisite round hole, red, wet lips vibrating with agony.

‘You are as clay to me, and I intend to remake you.’

‘I-I am a _god- ‘_

‘You can be a god in all matters but this,’ Tony tells him as he drives himself to completion into Loki’s copy, his mouth sank onto hot lotus lips, eagerly swallowing each shudder, and it is good, it is better than anything.

When he finally rolls off Loki’s eyes are red; red as the cloak he wears in Tony's dreams, and dry as bone.

 

*


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

**♨ L◭ℳℳ◬Ꮥ ♨**

2

Since he was been taken, Loki no longer seems to dare to go into the diminishing waters of his bathing pool. Tony watches him crouch for hours over it, murmering to the murky waters as if attempting to gain something lost.

‘Why don’t you go in?’ he finally asks.

‘The water will no longer accept me,’ Loki reveals, and his eyes are red when he says this; red as the silence after a throat-ripping scream.

He still likes to watch Loki attempt to clean himself in the pool, but all the scrubbing in the world would not wash away the black silt stains upon his feet and hands. Tony lets him scrub and sob to himself over the water’s edge, knowing that as a god’s skin would not wrinkle or become raw despite his overzealousness. Then, when he is tired of watching he would pick the god up, who seems to weigh little more than a large doll, and carry him into the welcoming wetness of the silt, there to lay his prize down and devour him. And Loki would sob over his shoulder, but he would open himself up like a beautiful lotus for Tony to take, shedding tears like spidery dewdrops upon his scarlet cloak.

No matter how much time he spends in the forest floor out of water, Loki’s skin always remains wet in his dreams. His hair is always curling wet and dark against his forehead and snaking river-like down his back and around the white columns of his throat. Tony loves to smooth his palms along this pale neck, exert a gentle pressure that allows him to both control Loki’s breathing as well as the frantic pulse fluttering just beneath.

‘Do you remember the day I captured you and made you mine?’ Tony takes to mummering into the god’s throat between bouts of teasing and suckling, lapping up the wetness on his clavicle as the god exhaled above him; pulling in deep shuddering breaths and shucking them out in tandem with Tony’s rocking hips, wet silt and mud squelching out between Tony’s cock and Loki’s stretched and swollen buttocks and dripping down entwined legs, uniting two bodies into single earth, single clay.

‘Do you remember, my sweetest? All those months ago?’

‘Yes- yes,’ his Loki of the glimmering skin would then gasp, trying to hold on to Tony’s shoulders with his pale slippery hands, trying his best to ride the rhythm that Tony had set for him – and how Tony loves, how he _loves_ the way the Loki of his dreams is always obedient, always so pristine and demure, sweetly shuddering into each clench no matter how filthy Tony made him. Loki might be God in some other world, but cradled here in this warm wet soil Tony is his master, and Loki sinks himself on his master’s cock and keens and trembles and debauches himself to Tony’s exact satisfaction.

*

‘I hate you,’ Loki grits, casting his curses into Tony’s teeth; ‘I _hate_ you.’

‘I know, Loki.’

‘You know nothing,’ the god snarls, broken and close to weeping, and _beautiful,_ beautiful.

‘I know you’re the god of lies,’ Tony answers, and at the expression of terror in Loki’s face, thrusts his final release into the god’s copy and holds him tightly as he hurtles through his climax. The dried tracks upon Loki’s cheeks leaves streaks of red upon his silt-caked face, red as transgression; red as the bite of the last harvest apple just before it goes to rot.

*.

Whenever he sensed Loki was inching towards completion Tony would abruptly withdraw, ignoring the cry of loss and frustration as Tony pulled out his own hungry cock and rubbed its weeping head against the god, slicking cock againts cock untill Loki came with a sob. Seldom would he allow himself to cum inside the god despite overwhelming temptation; instead he waited and watched and measured for the sense of emptiness and want to grow within Loki, until the god couldn’t bear the desperate ache of it anymore, would cry and buckled his hips on his own violation, seeking friction and fulfilment from the only source who could deliver it - and even then Tony did not relent, nor did he forgive.

Instead he stimulated anew and withdrew, always stimulated and withdrew; and kept this up with a non-human discipline until the need to be filled and brought to completion overwhelmed the god’s every rational thought, until Loki learnt to beg his human master to fuck him; to keep his cock deep within him, to sense and dread the smallest movement which hinted that Tony might be down to his final thrust – to babble and plead to be stroked by human hands, penetrated by human fingers until finally Tony knew his work was on the cusp of completion; on the brink of perfection.

Where worlds reversed, and man created god in his own likeness.

‘You are as clay to me, perfect for filling.’

_‘Please.’_

Tony rests the palm of his hand against the swollen ring of mussles, dragging his fingers with painstaking slowness across the puckered flesh and teasing it. ‘Do you know who you are?’

‘Yours,‘ Loki answers with a sob. ‘Please. Your vessel.’

Satisfied, Tony allows his cock to slowly, minutely breach and sink into the aching god, eliciting gasp after gasp of pleasure-pain.   

‘Do you know what you _want?’_ Tony mummers as he presses in, and each time he does this Loki would close his eyes and turn his face away; but he answers all the same, in a voice like water breaking over rocks.

‘I want to be _filled._  Please, I want you to fill me.’

Some days, Tony thinks he could almost be a god, for surely it took a sort of god to tame another.  To acquire, to alter and rearrange through the act of mutual possession. And then some days, when Tony finally becomes mindful of his surroundings he looks up, and sees that the forest and the pond has turned into fall birch trees and asphalt roads, and realises that he can no longer tell if he is dreaming or awake. All he can tell is that both dreams and waking hours are contained within a brittle glass vessel – one soon to break, as the outside world draws ever nearer.

And Tony would soon find out when the _real_ god shows in all his vengeful glory, if he had _truly_ succeeded in devouring Loki’s spirit, recalibrated and keyed only to him; or he had not.

But Tony knows he is good with his hands; good with instruments, and good with clay, and he whispers this to his vessel as he works, always stretching Loki and keeping him moist and pliant, always on the edge of something; about to tip over with only Tony’s hands to hold safely on to.   

Until the copy of Loki eventually whispers to him: ‘What have you done, Stark, to turn even my own soul against me?’

‘Shhhh, don’t fret, I have only made you to be more perfect,’ Tony says, and lowers his mouth to drink of the dark well of Loki’s lips. ‘Perfect like this. Perfect for me.‘

‘Please,’ Loki moans beneath him, urging his hips forward. ‘ _Please.’_ Shame is scored upon his face, slashes of red humiliation balances upon the knife-edge of his cheekbones whilst white thoat is offered like a gift and pale flesh bucks and writhe like a plucked harp beneath human hands.

‘There, shhhhh, I’ve got you,’ Tony hushes him. ‘I will never let you go.’

And Tony knows he has done this; given himself what he wants not on one plane, but two. He has inflicted his desires not on one planet, but two, altering forever their course.

*


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

 

 

 

**♨ L◭ℳℳ◬Ꮥ ♨**

 

 

3

Whenever Loki petitions for water Tony would mix silt and water into a bowl and allow his dream copy to sip sparingly from it, always keeping the bowl in his hands and jealously watching each swallow. He seldom allows more than five sips despite how sweetly the sound of Loki’s begging falls upon his ears. In time he added more silt than water, turning Loki’s brackish drink into a porridge of mulch and watching as Loki’s expression transitioned from desperate longing to frantic refusal whenever he saw the bowl in Tony’s hands.

How prettily the god took to begging then. ‘Don’t make me swallow it, please. Please, I don’t want it.’

Tony would stand there, bowl in hand and watch as the god sits on his knees and begs with one stained hand like a long black paw upon Tony’s thigh, pleading. With his silt-caked calves and elbows and fey, sharpened face, Tony fancies that he looks much like some mythical human-fox.

Quick as a serpent Tony seizes the god’s throat. ‘It doesn’t hurt, sweetheart! Open your mouth like a good boy, it’s just a little nutrition to keep you going-‘

_‘Water-‘_

‘There’s water in there, somewhere,’ Tony squints at the bowl as he tips it over thirst-blistered lips. _‘_ I wouldn’t lie to my precious one now, would I? You can have your water, dear heart, I’m not cruel. I just want you to taste me. And I want to taste you too.’

So saying he tilts the god’s head up. Loki struggles, but not too violently as if knowing the futility of it. He always finally swallows, choking ever few mouthfuls. Tony loves the look of Loki’s godly red lips stained with black. No sight had become more erotic than seeing himself leaking out of soft lip and throat, dripping down the god’s pale chest.

‘Drink up, my pretty, come on- swallow- one more swallow.’

He can feel himself going down Loki’s throat, and it feels unspeakably good to have the god drinking the earth-water, taking it into his alien womb.

When the bowl is empty he lets Loki lie slack-limbed on the earth, knowing that the onset of cramps as not far away as he gentle massages the god’s stomach.

‘It _moves_ within me,’ Loki moans, ‘-it _hurts.’_

‘Only for a little while, and I will distract you, as always,’ the human pacifies him as he repositions the quivering god on his hands and knees. ‘Don’t throw up, my sweetest, otherwise we’ll have to do it all over again and you won’t like it. That’s it, sink into the earth, just let it support you. You are part of it now, part of me.’

‘Hurts, hurts,’ Loki sobs, then panics when he attempts to move his hands and find them caked fast in the silt. Repeated tugging doesn’t work; no matter how he struggles, his hands seemed to have become a part of the earth and would not move, and he is suddenly locked upon all fours. Whining, he tries to push himself away with increasing panic, simultaneously attempting to free himself and keep from collapsing from pain.

Tony drops onto his knees. ‘Don’t be afraid, Loki, its just the earth holding you.’

‘I can’t move,’ the god’s voice became rapidly hysterical. ‘Help me, help me-’

‘Loki-‘

‘Help me!’

But Tony shakes his head, just as confused. He can see Loki’s hands and legs sinking deeper into the earth. He could sense the excitement, the movement beneath the ground; its deep thirst rising from the ground like a vapour.

Tony frowns and tried to think, but the earth itself seems to be about to claim Loki, and whilst a part of him is deeply exited at the prospects he is not exactly sure if he wanted that. In any case there seems to be was nothing he can do to stop it.

‘You will be fine, just relax into it. I’ll be here, my sweetest. I’ll make sure nothing happens-‘

‘Fuck me then,’ Loki suddenly whispers, terror colouring his voice and face, which only makes the tableau more irresistible to Tony. He watches as the god lifts his hips, offering himself to Tony’s without force or persuasion. He almost trembles as he drinks in the sight of Loki positioned on his hands and knees before him with those tempting moulds of arse flesh hiding the sweetest treasures, inviting plunder.

‘God yes,’ Tony mummers thickly as he tumbles forward, watching his own his fingers sink around Loki’s inviting hips. ‘I like you like this. An offering.’

‘Take me before it happens.’

His fingers are almost shaking as he gently prys away the flesh, taunting himself with visions of Loki’s sore and abused hole, a delicious apple red, still warm to the touch. Loki hisses when he scraps a fingernail against the over sensitised flesh, and in delight he does it again and again.

‘Please-‘

With painstaking slowness he eases a mud-slicked finger in, watching it get swallowed up. Loki bucks and cries out when he crooks his fingers deep inside, and the sound and feel of it is unbearably erotic and debauched.

Shhhh,’ Tony said and reaches under to rub the distended belly, which roils with strange things moving beneath the skin, reminding Tony of the almost dried lake.

‘Take me now.’

Tony does need any additional encouragement. Taking himself in hand, he eases his cock with a sigh into the swollen channel of Loki’s flesh, enjoying the flinching hips, the feeling of snugness giving way and curling around him. Loki was so perfect in accommodating him.

Once he had pushed completely in he withdrew to the tip, drawing pained noises from Loki before sinking back in. So good. So good.

‘Let’s get you dirty,’ Tony mummers as he begins to rhythmically snap his hips forward, loving the involuntary moaning that jerks out of the god’s stained lips with every thrust. So sweet. So helpless. He couldn’t resist scooping out more of the silt and working it into Loki’s skin, his face, into his mouth, rubbing it all over whilst his thrusting gained momentum, working the tight channel open. ‘I love you like this.’

He closes his eyes and barely registers that his beautiful vessel is still descending into the silt which has by now softened into swamp, reaching the god’s upper thighs and elbows and starting to lap at his chest.

‘I’m sinking,’ the god wrenches at his arms and legs again, disrupting Tony’s rhythm.

‘Loki, stop moving-‘

 _‘Nonono-what have you done to me,_ what have you done – _STARK-‘_ For a second Tony snaps out of his high as Loki’s very being seems to waver before him.The name tipping out of red lips jars him, making Tony relinquish his hold, and for the briefest of moments Tony thinks he hears the _real_ Loki scream, but this is a just dream, it’s _his_ dream -his lovingly and painstakingly nurtured nightmare. There was no way Loki can penetrate his dominion here.

‘Do not be afraid-‘ Tony begins, reaching out a hand to stroke sweat-plastered hair as he cock remains buried, claiming the god still, but Loki is past persuasion; he opens his mouth and screams as he has never screamed; dark eyes blown out with fear.

‘Don't bury me into the ground. Don’t kill me here. I cannot bear it. I cannot _breath.’_

‘I don’t understand, Loki, I would never kills you.’ Confused, Tony shakes his head, smoothing long black hair away from bone white face. ‘What did you see? What do you fear?’

But Loki only screams, blood-curdling and siren-high, dark silt dripping from wet red mouth, but his words don’t feel like they come from dream Loki, _his_ Loki anymore.

‘Save me, don’t let me die, Stark;  _STARK-‘_

*

Still entwined, Loki breaks the comfortable silence that had descended over them both when he suddenly calls out _‘STARK.’_

Tony’s eyes flicker open with reluctance. ‘Yes?’

‘Will you kill me?’

‘What kind of question is that?’ Tony asks, fingers tightening around the god’s slim torso. 

‘When he arrives; will you kill me?’

‘ _He?_ ’ Tony blinks the sleep from his eyes, trying to understand. Then more slowly; ‘Fucking-hell, of course not, I intend to _protect_ you. Don’t say things like that, Lokes, you scared the bejabers out of me.’

Several moments pass before the god finally answers, ‘He will never forgive you for this.’

Tony massages his forehead. So it was going to be one of _those_ types of post-coitus conversations.

‘Nevermind him. As long as you forgive me.’

A longer silence ensues, before the god finally rolls over and plants his face into Tony’s chest with an audible sigh, allowing the human to wrap his arms around him. That is all the answer Tony needs.

 _‘He_ is of no consequence; _he_ is not who I want, you are.’

‘I am. Part of him.’

‘No. There’s a soul within you. Unique and whole. I see it.’

‘I am a broken vessel, and when he finds me I shall be shattered and returned to my infinite sleep.’

‘Anything or anyone who tries to do that will have to get through me first,’ Tony tightens his hold. ‘And get their ass kicked.’

‘You are full of folly, Anthony, and we will both die for it;’ Loki sighs, but Tony can feel the curving movement of a smile pressed against his chest.

‘You like me regardless,’ Tony reminds him. ‘At least a part of you does.’

 ‘I see myself in you,’ Loki sighs. He is more candid in surrender than Tony would ever have imagined him capable of. ‘More so _him._ I see much of him in you. _’_

‘What a pair then, huh Lokes? Me with my mind like a bag of cats, and you-’ Tony stroked the god’s pale forehead, ‘brain as mad and fragmented as Medusa.’

Loki rose before him, settles onto his chest and gaze at him with soft, pleading eyes. ‘Then kill me. Kill me before the Avengers find you. Kill me before he takes me back.’

‘No. I _told_ you not to say that.’

‘Our fate is sealed, it is only a matter of time before both our pursuers find us.’

Tony grimaces and gave a bark of laughter ‘I told you, I’ll deal with it.’

‘You condemn us both to eternal separation, Anthony, once we run out of time.’

‘The answer is still no, Loki.’

‘Thou art a foolish thing, son of stark,’ the god’s voice is weary but fond as he gave up to lie silently on Tony’s chest, listening to his heartbeats.

‘Believe in me. I will find another way.’

‘We are run out of time, and you know it as well as I.’

Tony knew grief then, and a sense of loss so heavy it’s a wonder his face isin’t wet with tears. He doesn’t feel so invincible now.

‘I will find a way.’

*

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for all the sick! Especially to my 'Flawed Design' readers who accidental wandered into *this* swampy morass, expecting something similar. Stick with the story if you've ventured this far though, cos its mostly real-world action from hence on :P


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to Calamity Cain, who had a birthday that I didn't know about until I trawled through tumblr.. sorry! I hope you like it.

**♨ L◭ℳℳ◬Ꮥ ♨**

 

4

_Save me-_

_Save me Stark._

_The metallic tang of blood and desperation._

_Arms, reaching out but he can’t grab them and Loki is water, a mirage;_

_The god opens his mouth and stretches out his hands but all Tony grabs is red water and he’s bleeding, bleeding-_

_Save me, Stark._

_Save me-_

_-_

 

 

Tony wakes up, heart racing so fast that he thinks he’s about to get a stroke.

‘JARVIS, lights.’

Silence answers him, and it’s a long, painful moment before he realises he’s not at the tower – hasn’t been for months. He’s on the run. They’re both on the run.

Breath still tripping, he reminds himself of the important things.

The _only_ important thing.

He lays a trembling hand on the sleeping figure beside him, smooth his palm over the curve of Loki’s arm and curls his fingers into the dark hair, reminding himself of its physical reality. He watches the god slumbered on unawares, so very harmless looking; so very _human_ in his oblivion. 

He forces himself to recover. Focuses on breathing, focuses on flexing his fingers into the lock of Loki’s hair- now grown out in their year-long exile, as soft and black as sin. He draws out upon the inhale. Focuses on the exhale.

He doesn’t go back to sleep.

*

They do find him, eventually. Of course they find him; it was never a matter when, but a question of _who first._

He knows that The Avengers had been keeping tabs on Loki's whereabouts and vice versa in their mutual attempts to track Tony down , which has been hilarious as hell until the day he discovers that they’d started working together to find him. The forces of good and evil, united against the singular madness of Tony Stark. He suppose he should be flattered, but he’s since then been too busy trying to stay one step ahead.

The moment he’d been certain that his Loki wouldn’t attempt to escape or betray him to his creator, Tony had packed their bags and flown them to Mexico in a stealth plane. There for a time they could breathe freer if not with more urgency, and it is there Tony finishes the magic-diffusing bracelets which effectively renders Loki almost mortal – impossible to track nor compel by his creator to return to him.

He’d kissed Loki’s wrist in apology before snapping them on. The god had said nothing; merely rubbed his wrist and beckoned Tony back to bed. He seemed more at peace after that; if emptier, more silent than before. Tony knows that the bracelets have cut Loki adrift, like a marionette that had suddenly been severed. It is always on the tip of his tongue to tell Loki that he merely has to ask, and Tony would take them off again, damn the consequences.

But he never makes this offer. And Loki does not ask.

Life turns into endless days of hiding; of moving numerous times, jumping borders, of changing disguises and leaving false trails. Of endless nights laying awake waiting for Loki to get tired of doing this and betray him. He isn’t a fool, but a part of Tony has always known he’s on a fool’s errand.

But the bracelets buys them a year, and he can’t bring himself to regret it.

At least he doesn’t, until the day the Avengers finally succeeds in tracking him down.

*

He is not surprised they send Bruce first, to talk some sense into him, followed swiftly by Captain America. He _is_ however surprised that Thor had allowed it, impatient thunder god that he is. Perhaps he’s somewhere else, holding the real Loki at bay.

It isn’t until Hawkeye makes his entrance with the Widow in tow that the party picks up,

‘Congratulations are in order, Tin Can, you’ve finally out-crazied the god of crazy himself.’

Tony gave a bark of laughter from behind his suit, guns trainned on his former compatriots. ‘I’m not the one _working_ with him.’

‘No you’re just sleeping with him,’ the Widow says cooly. 'Summer holiday is over.'

Bruce tries to come closer, his hands raised. ‘Tony, what you have there is not even Loki. He’s just a _doll,_  He can barely speak or move.’

‘Of course he can,’ Tony turns to Loki. ‘Say hi to our unwanted guest.’

But Loki just sits on the bed, his head slightly tilted, lips parted in waiting. He appeared not to notice the shattered glass; the Avengers standing around them with varying shades of shock.

‘Ok. I guess you’re feeling a bit shy with all that company, I would too,’ Tony swept his gaze around, rapidly calculating his chances, looking for gaps and weaknesses whilst he continues to shot of his mouth. ‘Well its been a wonderful reunion folks. We should do it again someday, but now you’ve seen my handsome mug and how wonderfully well we're doing, you lot can take yourself off again.’

‘Bullshit Stark,’ Hawkeye spat on the ground. ‘You look like death warmed over, you’ve clearly gone fucking insane and managed to stick the foot that’s usually in your _mouth into_ _your own fucking grave;_ and we’re here to stop you from sticking the _other_ foot in whether you like it or not. So come along nicely or we’ll _make_ you.’

‘Bite me,’ Tony says as he raises his suit’s repulses at Hawkeye’s drawn bow, and it goes downhill from there. It goes downhill _very_ fast, because Loki suddenly enters the fray, and he might be a weakened version but Tony had given him the means to defend himself, and he doesn’t hold back when he opens fire on Clint.

Hawkeye rolls away, voice raising to a shriek. ‘A suit? You built _Loki_ a fucking suit?’

‘I sure fucking did.’ Tony grins viciously from behind his own faceplate as he watches Loki’s custom suit mould themselves into a perfect cocktail of dark green and red brass, refined and deadly. His copy might be a shadow of the original in terms of strength and magic, but Tony is a _god_ of the machines, capable of shaping his own fate, capable of giving back what is lost, and looking at Loki now, he can barely keep from crowing in triumph.

Let them come.

Bruce’s urgent voice cuts his triumph short. ‘Tony! You have to listen to us, Loki _is on his way,_ and we need to get you out of here right now – he’s sworn to kill you-‘

‘Because you kids were so nice to lead Tall, Dark and Crazy to rain on my honeymoon.’ But even Tony cannot escape the way his copy suddenly jerks, flickering suddenly to life at the mention of his maker’s name.

‘This is madness,’ Bruce said, and turns away. ‘I can’t be here, I’ll- I know you Tony. There’s no happy ending for you on a road like this.’

The words makes him hurt in a way he didn’t know possible, probably because its Bruce, and the sound of Bruce’s voice is like the memory of rain and ice cream and computer games; all the innocent things before- just  _before,_ and Tony’s laughter is forced, chokes past his throat like broken glass. ‘Yeah what did you expect when you chase us around like dogs? Surely you didn’t think I’d make it that easy for you to arrest us.’

‘Stop! Stop fighting. Dammit!’ Steve yanked off his mask beseechingly.  ‘We’re not here to arrest you, Tony, we _care_ about you-‘

‘If you care so much, Steve, you’d _leave us the fuck alone_. We were doing mighty fine before you fellows came bargaining in here, now my insurance premium’s going to go through the stratosphere-‘

‘Tony, _listen to us_. You’re not well, you need treatment.’ Steve pleaded. ‘Pepper has been crying her eyes out for months-‘

‘I’m sure you’ll send her my best, and she should feel free to rename the company Basil Co because I’m not com-’

‘Tony, this is not a joke, we need to evacuate you n-‘ Steve breaks off when the ceiling glass shatters suddenly above them, an explosion like an earthquake that shakes the ground and every pillar in the building.  

Then there is nothing more to say, because the god of mischief has finally arrived, and there is blood on his lips and red vengeance in his eyes.

And oh, he is _glorious_ in his rage.

*

He keeps digging, digging, his hands bleeding, _aching._ His fingers alternate between being completely numbed out and severely cramping up; shooting sparks of pain up his knuckles; nails half torn away - but he cant stop bcause the soil keeps covering Loki’s face, and he digs faster, harder, until his breath streams like miasma before him.

It had taken him time, too much time to confirm that Loki hadn’t stopped sinking into the soil. He had fought the evidence before him for too long, denied what is happening too stubbornly and now Loki was-

It's not happening. Its not, but he keeps digging, because he doesnt know what else to do.

-

_Save me._

_Save me._

_Hang on to me. Hang on._

_-_

The earth was _swallowing Loki whole,_ like a meal, and he couldn’t stop what was happening, _his own goddamn fucking dream_ was no longer under his control.

He screams and yanks and digs, but his beautiful vessel doesn’t stop sinking, and Tony resorts to holding his neck up, then to blowing air into the god’s lips to keep him breathing.

‘Save me- save-‘

‘Hang on, Loki, hang on just hang _on_ hang _on_ \- ‘

‘Tony,’ the god chokes on mud to whisper. There was a despair in his beloved’s face that trips his heart to shreds. Loki's eyes are shattered jewels, reflect ingback at him an acknowledge he cannot accept.

‘Don’t let go. Please, _please_ don’t let go.’

But a part of Tony knows he wouldn’t be able to dig him out fast enough.

 

 

 

“That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.”   
― Neil Gaiman,  _The Sandman_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final instalment, Dísablót, should post shortly, so do subscribe to the series for updates! <3
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr: Lokitini](http://lokitini.tumblr.com/)


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